Content Curation World

At the start of 2012 Steve Rubel, EVP of Edelman, published a very interesting slide deck entitled "Insights on the Future of Media" - Volume 1.

In it he analized five key trends that had emerged from his numerous talks with CEOs, startup founders, technology vendors and reporters about what would be the key, most important best practices to emerge in the near future.

The first such practice analyzed in his presentation is "news curation" under the heading "Curate to Dominate.

Steve Rubel writes: "...what I discovered is that vertical curators like SBN may soon play a larger role in how we consume content than many of us may realize.

This has ramifications for both journalists and communicators.

Sports is one of the largest and oldest online interest verticals.The category is dominated by large brands - sites like ESPN.com and Yahoo Sports, which rose to prominence during the 1990s.

Suddenly, however, the edges are fraying.

First, athletes and teams are becoming their own media channels. Beyond that, new curators are moving in and disrupting the business. SBN, for example, rolls up the best independent blog voices covering individual teams into a carefully curated network.

The Bleacher Report, meanwhile, takes a more open, crowd- Jim Bansourced approach. Today its the 12th largest sports site, koff, Vox Media according to comScore.

Both SBN and Bleacher Report are demonstrating that there's a huge opportunity for new media brands to emerge that focus on separating art from junk.

This is all a result of too much content and not enough time."

And if you are asking what's the future of a curator as a paid resource or as a business per se, here is his answer:

"...what about breaking news, which is more of a commodity these days? Can a curator win in news too?

According to the 3.3 million people who follow the MSNBC- owned @breakingnews account on Twitter - the sub-140-character answer is "yes."

That's where we pick up the story. To learn more, I sought out fellow Hofstra University alum Lauren McCullough. She recently joined @breakingnews from AP as a Senior Editor.

...MSNBC has turned it into a 24/7 news operation that curates links faster than anyone else."

Find more valuable insight, names and brands already "walking the talk" on slides 4, 5 and 6 of this very interesting deck  (Insights on the Future of Media - Volume 1, January 2012).

Recommended. Insightful. Informative. 8/10

Here the original slideshow: http://www.slideshare.net/steverubel/the-clip-report-volume-1

Full PDF: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30447076/The%20Clip%20Report%20Vol1.pdf